February 23, 2010 archive

He’s not smashing the boy’s testicles, per se…

Rather, he’s keeping us safe, which is well within his powers as commander in chief.

These included Yoo’s findings in the memorandum that: 1) the Fourth Amendment would not apply to domestic military operations designed to deter and prevent future terrorist attacks; 2) “broad statements” suggesting that First Amendment speech and press rights under the constitution would potentially be subordinated to overriding military necessities; and 3) that domestic deployment of the Armed Forces by the President to prevent and deter terrorism would fundamentally serve a military purpose rather than law enforcement purpose and thus would not violate the Posse Comitatus Act.

It’s testicle crushing as a symbolic gesture of other rightful powers of the President.

Afternoon Edition

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Haitian official: orphans given to US Embassy

Associated Press

17 mins ago

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – A top Haitian official tells The Associated Press that the U.S. Embassy now has custody of six orphans who were seized by Haitian police as they were about to board a plane for the United States.

Social Welfare agency chief Jeanne Bernard Pierre would not say when her office handed the children over to U.S. officials.

The children, ages 1 to 5, were seized by police Saturday from four women who were accompanying them out of Haiti, apparently with the correct legal paperwork. An angry crowd had accused the group of child trafficking.

to a god unknown

Here’s the thing. The truth? Useless. Facts, even more so. Reality? What the fuck is that?

There’s only this: what people believe.

Photobucket

Men often become what they believe themselves to be. Men often become what they believe themselves to be. Men often become what they believe themselves to be. Men often become what they believe themselves to be. Men often become what they believe themselves to be. Men often become what they believe themselves to be. Men often become what they believe themselves to be.

Mahatma Gandhi

Open Country

Photobucket

Dear Mr. President

Seeking to brand himself as the anti-establishment politician, Rep. Joe Sestak has put up a Web ad directly attacking President Obama for supporting Republican-turned-Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania primary.

It features a black-and-white montage of Obama supporters expressing deep disappointment that the president is supporting Specter. An acoustic star strums throughout, the whole effect similar to the “Yes We Can” music video made by Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas in the 2008 campaign.

“That’s not change we can believe in,” the Obama/Sestak backers say.

Since Sestak is now aiming at Obama, it sheds an interesting light on his blurting out last week an accusation that the White House had offered him an important federal job in order to drop his challenge to Specter. Was it an accident? (By the way, Sestak still has not provided any details of that offer that can be independently confirmed.)  link

Genuine or not, it is a pleasure to have a Democrat call Obama out.  

Olympic Alternatives VIII

You thought I was not serious?

I’m dead serious.  The only way to effect change is through sacrifice (changing your habits) and protest (telling people what you think, publicly).

Plenty of other stuff out on the Hypnotoad.  Just look-

The Hypnotoad.

"Television is a vast wasteland"
hypnotoad

Early Evening Update.

Late Evening Update.

Late Night Update.

Why are you Update?

Heather Graham Stars in MoveOn Ad: the Public Option Is Not Dead!

From MoveOn:

Big Insurance has been feeling pretty smug, thinking they’d killed the public option. But it’s hard to keep down something that a majority of Americans want. The public option IS BACK!  

The new spot, a Web video that recasts the footage from the earlier spot with permission from Graham herself, shows reps from the insurance industry feeling smug about having killed the public option, only to be startled when she reappears.

snip

“When a majority of Americans supports something, it’s hard to keep a good idea down,” the spot says. “The public option is making a comeback. Over 20 Senators and over 100 House members have endorsed putting the public option back on the table.”

http://theplumline.whorunsgov….

How To Create 18 Million Jobs

Robert Pollin is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and is a founding co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI).  His research centers on macroeconomics, conditions for low-wage workers in the U.S. and globally, the analysis of financial markets, and the economics of building a clean-energy economy in the U.S. His books include A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the US and Contours of Descent: US Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity.

Here Pollin talks with Paul Jay of The Real News Network and outlines a careful combination of job-generating public investments, incentives to mobilize private investment, and policies that protect economically vulnerable populations that can create the economic and policy environment that Obama could use to create 18 million jobs and lower the unemployment rate to only 4 percent by 2012.

Transcript here, and there is also a companion article to this by Pollin in the March 08, 2010 edition of The Nation.

Docudharma Times Tuesday February 23




Tuesday’s Headlines:

Karzai poll body power grab sparks Western concern

Under the world’s greatest cities, deadly plates

USA

Obama stays on offense with health-care proposal

Google Buzz may put children at risk, parents fear

Europe

Saudi and Emirati diplomats accused of trafficking staff into UK

Did TV star murder the man who sacked her?

Middle East

Turkish police arrest 50 in move against anti-Islamist coup

Iraqi families slaughtered in pre-election sectarian atatck

Asia

India’s slum-dwellers fear eye in the sky heralds demolition of their homes

Ban on commercial whaling ‘to end’

Africa

ANC firebrand denies funding lavish lifestyle from public purse

Latin America

Colombia becomes new hub for human smuggling into US

Emergency Conference on the Social Crisis & War

Original article via World Socialist Web Site:

The World Socialist Web Site, Socialist Equality Party and International Students for Social Equality are holding an emergency national conference on the social crisis and war, to be held April 17-18 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We urge all of our readers and supporters to register and make plans to attend today.

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning


Thin Sliced

(Click on image for larger view)

Deux…

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

Load more